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Thursday, March 4, 2010

Martin Skoula played for Devils coach Jacques Lemaire for three-plus seasons in Minnesota, so he knows the 30-year-old defenseman -- or as Lemaire referred to him, "Skou-la-la" -- pretty well.

"At a time, Skoula was our best defenseman for a good while," Lemaire said of the Devils' deadline-day acquisition from Toronto. "When he gets his game pattern, he's very effective."

Lemaire believes he can help the Devils and told general manager Lou Lamoriello that when he asked about him before Wednesday's trade.

"I think he can play as good as some of the guys we have," he said. "I think he's very solid in the defensive zone. He knows the game well. He's a big body (6-3, 225). He protects the puck along the boards. He can make that first pass. When he's got his game straightened up, he can do good stuff. It doesn't mean he's going to go ahead of our guys right away, but we'll see what he can do and if he shows that he's doing more things, then we'll put him in the lineup. That's how it works."

Although Devils GM Lou Lamoriello Skoula is scheduled to arrive in Calgary late tonight, Lemaire said he won't play in Friday night's game against the Flames.

"We'll see what he can do first," Lemaire said. "We'll see how the other guys play and we'll go from there."

The Wild opted not to re-sign Skoula after last season and he signed with Pittsburgh as an unrestricted free agent in September. He played in only 33 games for the Penguins, however, and they sent him to Toronto in a trade Tuesday for Alexei Ponikarovsky. The Leafs shipped him to the Devils for a fifth-round draft pick on Wednesday.

"In Pittsburgh, I don't know if he fit there," Lemaire said. "It depends what you want. I know what he is and I know what he can do. If we get an injury, we (would have) had to go to the minors (for a defensemen) who didn't play all year. It's important going into the last 20 games and going into the playoffs. If you get injuries, you've got to have a replacement and these replacements, they have to be able to play. That's why I'm saying he's going to be as good as the other guys -- as long as it's going to our top guy that gets injured. But we won't worry if we ever get an injury. We'll say, 'Wow, he's going to be able to do the job.'"

Devils forward Patrik Elias played with Skoula on the Czech Olympic team in 2002 and in the 2004 World Cup, but says he doesn't know him that well.

"He called me yesterday to day, 'Hi,'" Elias said.

"He played a lot of years in Colorado (five)," Elias said. "He's not a flashy guy, but responsible."

Devils left wing Brian Rolston played with Skoula for two-plus seasons in Minnesota and agreed with Lemaire's assessment that he was the Wild's best defenseman at times.

"He was, he can be," Rolston said. "He really can be. He played really well in Minnesota. I know Jacques really liked him and enjoyed coaching him. He's a good player and he's going to be a good addition to our team."

***Left wing Ilya Kovalchuk played one of his best games since joining the Devils Tuesday night in San Jose, putting up a goal and an assist in a 4-3 win.

"He looked good, very good, excellent, as a matter of fact," Lemaire said. "(If he has) a couple of games like this, start to get four out of five games, then you'll be able to sat that he's settled (in). He's got to get into a routine of playing good and feeling good. You could tell last game he was feeling good."

***Although the Devils gave up three goals in a span of 2:46 in the third period Tuesday to turn a 4-0 lead unto a 4-3 advantage, Lemaire said that was "it was nothing" to worry about.

"That little stretch, I looked at it and it was nothing," Lemaire said. "Teams are good. You're playing a top team in the league. You get a bad break and then a goal on the power play. I guess they're going to score (on the power play). They've scored a few. They're the one that has the (second) most goals for. So, they get that second goal and the other one was kind of lucky again. It hit a skate and goes in. What can you do? But the thing is we held on to the game against a good team. That's what's the most important thing."

Lemaire believes the win was a significant one.

"We've been talking about that three or four times," he said. "This was a big win."

***If you were in the visiting locker room at the Pengrowth Saddledome after the Devils' practice there this afternoon, you would have seen Anssi Salmela sitting next to defenseman Mike Mottau and untying his skates. Martin Brodeur shook his head as he walked by and remarked that he had never seen that happen before.

It turned out that Mottau, who is American, and Salmela, who is from Finland, made a friendly wager on last week's Olympic semifinal between their countries. The U.S. won, 6-1, so Salmela has to untie Mottau's skates on non-game days for a week.

***Rookie right wing Vladimir Zharkov confirmed that Lamoriello changed his number from 28 to 18 (and gave 28 to Skoula). Zharkov said it didn't matter to him and he has no favorite number. He was aware though that No. 18 used to belong to Sergei Brylin and was happy about that.

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.